Posting this, my favorite piece of poetry, in honor of those who gave all for their country, and in memory of my father the late PFC Dennis M Shelton, Veteran of the Vietnam War.

High Flight
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high unsurpassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

Pilot Officer Gillespie Magee
No 412 squadron, RCAF
Killed 11 December 1941

That was beautiful, Shaz.  Thank you for posting it.

That is beautiful Shaz! My father was a WW2 pilot and he has that poem engraved on a plaque in his office. His other plaque is Douglas MacArther's "Give me a son".  Both are great poems!

My step-father was a WWII/Korean/Viet Nam veteran and is now buried in Arlington Cementary.  :'( :'( :'(


Cat

This is one of my favourite WW2 Poems.

His place was laid,
The messroom clock struck eight,
The sun shone through the window on his chair.
No-one commented on his fate,
Save for a head-shake here and there;
Only old George, who'd seen him die,
Spinning against the Autumn sky,
Leaned forward and turned down his plate.
And, as he did, the sunlight fled,
As though the sky he'd love so
Mourned her dead.

Breakfast, Hannah M. Hunt. 1940.